Over the years we have had a number of weevil infestations in our pantry. I finally had the county entomologist share with me that they tend to be in most commercially packed grains and that all you can do is to go through what you buy fast enough to keep from having a full weevil life cycle get out and into your pantry. I have heard of your suggestion to freeze flower and have been told that this only delayed the start of the insect life cycle to when you took it out of the freezer. (The implication was that your freezer couldn’t get cold enough to kill them but only make they go dormant.) I am looking for information about generating CO2 to replace the air in your packing containers and this would either kill them or keep them dormant the entire time you ore storing them. I have seen one description of using a coin size piece of dry-ice inside the mylar bags before final sealing. The dry-ice idea would not be available after the event. There has to be a simple lime-stone and acid in a mason jar with a piece of aquarium tubing????? (Looking for details on this!???)
I am still fairly new with prepping. This site and the emails have helped me to focus. I also have many prepper friends. I don’t buy store eggs any more because so many people have them for sale. I want to get chickens, but the town where I live does not allow them. I am more organized now than I was a year ago. One thing I’ve done was buy the little book Live on Wheat, which is also about beans and sprouts. I do have wheat and a mill, but I want to develop the lifestyle as well as gather the “stuff.”
“If you’re using it for emergency survival, the fact is you’re going to buy it once, and hopefully you’re not going to use it,” Shields said. “But it’s there as a safety net for you and your family.” That’s what intrigued me about freeze-dried food: You can wait up to a quarter-century to use it, but in an ideal world, you wouldn’t have to eat it at all.
We have cultivated this prepping for beginners preppers guide from our in depth research of prepping and have condensed the information into one simple guide to get you off and running with your preps. This abridged guide is meant to be a summary of the most important and basic needs that everyone should know about in order to protect themselves and their families should an emergency arise.

I have a .30-.30 Win. lever action disguised as a Floor lamp with a shade. The shade is glued to a long dowel small enough to go down the barrell. The Butt Stock shoves and fits tight into a weighted block of wood like a christmas tree stand; and its loaded with one up the spout. Just pull out the shade and rod; stand on the base push gun away from yourself and pull up. Only 2 movements in the ready if you don’t count cocking the Hammer. It won’t fire unless you compress the Lever mechanism. Its already cocked anyway.

Business for Hardened Structures, an engineering firm based in Virginia Beach, is up roughly 40% since 2005, co-owner Brian Camden says. Some of his clients buy gold and silver and other precious metals as a hedge against a possible collapse of the currency, and they want to be able to protect it and their families, he says. So his company designs ways to build underground bunkers, strengthen walls and improve security systems on homes.

If you have a daytime job or go to school, there is a good chance that the event you are preparing for could unfold while you are at that location - or somewhere on the way. Do you need a special plan to handle this possibility? Can you get back home easily? Do you need water, food, money, or clothes to make that trip? How likely is it that you would be hurt or stranded somewhere?

While lurking on a prepper discussion thread on Tea Party Community, a social network marketed as a conservative alternative to Facebook, I once saw a rousing discussion about navigating the tricky business of armed combat while confined to a mobility scooter. In that particular hypothetical scenario, individuals were discussing the best ways to kill NATO peacekeeping forces. These are real people, and they live in your city. You've seen them around, buying groceries or waiting in line at the DMV—just doing regular old human activities. The only difference is that these people look at society and see the death throes of something grotesque, and they imagine that it is likely enough that they will find themselves thrown into a new mode of living, something primal and vicious and, let's face it, potentially invigorating.

Huffman, who lives in San Francisco, has large blue eyes, thick, sandy hair, and an air of restless curiosity; at the University of Virginia, he was a competitive ballroom dancer, who hacked his roommate’s Web site as a prank. He is less focussed on a specific threat—a quake on the San Andreas, a pandemic, a dirty bomb—than he is on the aftermath, “the temporary collapse of our government and structures,” as he puts it. “I own a couple of motorcycles. I have a bunch of guns and ammo. Food. I figure that, with that, I can hole up in my house for some amount of time.”

Some Geiger counters can keep track of the cumulative dose for you, but most will simply display the rate at which you are getting exposed - typically in microsieverts per hour (µSv/h) or microroentgens per hour (µR/h; for gamma radiation, 1 R/h ≈ 1/100 Sv/h). To figure out what the reading means, you need to do the math: for example, at 600 µSv/h, you will hit 100 mSv within a week, and 1 Sv within about two months. (The usual background rate from natural sources hovers around 0.1-0.2 µSv/h.)

We have cultivated this prepping for beginners preppers guide from our in depth research of prepping and have condensed the information into one simple guide to get you off and running with your preps. This abridged guide is meant to be a summary of the most important and basic needs that everyone should know about in order to protect themselves and their families should an emergency arise.

Spark Naturals Essential Oils: My first line of defense for minor ailments and illness is essential oils.A good option to start with is the “Health and Wellness” kit that comes packaged in a tin and includes a brochure with suggested uses for each of the oils. As kits, these oils are already discounted but as an added bonus, you get an additional 10% off with discount code BACKDOORSURVIVAL at checkout.
Built for the Kill (2001–04) Taboo (2002–13) Explorations (2003–04) Be the Creature (2003–04) Seven Deadly Arts with Akshay Kumar (2004) Interpol Investigates (2004–05) Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan (2004–11) Megastructures (2004–11) Naked Science (2004–11) In the Womb (2005–10) Hunter Hunted (2005–08) Is It Real? (2005–07) Extraterrestrial (2005) Paranormal? (2005) I Didn't Know That (2006) Ultimate Factories (2006–13) Wild (2006–12) Prehistoric Predators (2007–09) Trapped (2007) Critical Situation (2007–08) Lockdown (2007) DogTown (2008–10) Big, Bigger, Biggest (2008–11) Planet Mechanics (2008) Perilous Journeys (2008–13) World's Toughest Fixes (2008–10) Rescue Ink Unleashed (2009) Alaska State Troopers (2009–15)
As for cars: there is no hope. Don't leave anything of substantial value in the vehicle, and if the car itself is expensive, have it insured against theft (setting your deductible to $1,000 or more keep the premiums low). Avoid tempting the thieves in any way: countless car windows have been smashed over a $5 bill and some coins left in the cup holder. Put spare change somewhere else.
OK. Great. You've stockpiled for the end of the world, you quack. The chances of the world ending are smaller than ... holy crap, what the hell is a supervolcano? See why we're all doomed in 5 Ways The World Could End That You'd Never See Coming. And if that's not enough to get you to build your own bunker, check out 6 Tiny Mistakes That Almost Ended The World. Really, the planet almost ended due to a blown fuse? Come on humanity, let's get it together.
Folks without a car are at a marked disadvantage, but should still try to put together a 72-hour "bug out bag" - and ideally, keep it somewhere within a walking or biking distance of their home (say, at work or at a friend's place). It's best to keep it light; some cash, 2-4 quarts of water, a 3,600 kcal emergency ration, and a raincoat will be almost certainly more useful than a gun and a collection of throwing knives.
For an hour and 50 minutes, we talk a lot about liberty. The world according to Fletch hinges on the rhetorical question, “Is this going to give me more liberty, or less liberty?” He also assures me that his survivalist group isn’t just white guys running around in the woods with guns. “In my sphere of influence, there are Asians, there are blacks, Native Americans; a person’s race has absolutely nothing to do with anything,” Fletch says.

My one consideration/recommendation. Consider ‘splitting’ your bag. I carry ‘the essentials’ in a ‘belt-kit’ (packed in the top bag for easy immediate donning, never to be taken off) – the very basic items I ‘must’ have at all times if SHTF (if you get separated from your bag). The rest is in a(n) (unnoticeable in city street/office) duffle/shoulder bag that is configurable to change to a ‘normal rucksack’ (with waist-belt too) – as someone who has carried many loads you will ‘really’ appreciate that ability if you must carry for any length of time.

Finally, when prepping for food, meticulously keep an eye out for coupons. This may mean that you purchase dozens of beans one week and tons of rice the next. However, if you set yourself a budget of $10/mo and max this out as much as you can, you will soon see your food supplies growing. That would be $120 worth of seeds, food, and canned goods that you could have at the end of the year. We’ve said it a number of times already, but preparing even a little bit at a time is better than nothing at all.
Because I couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to actually live off the stuff, I placed an order for Wise’s Seven Day Emergency Food and Drink Supply, a shoebox-size assortment of breakfast foods, entrées, and dehydrated whey milk substitute, in addition to a few other options I’d discovered online. I wanted to know what an insurance policy tasted like.
Over the phone from the company’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, Shields attributed the spike to the onslaught of natural disasters that left thousands of Americans without food in 2017, and rattled many more. “You got the hurricane that hit Florida, you got the hurricane that hit the Houston area, you got the hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico,” he said. “Geologists are coming out and saying that California is severely overdue for a big earthquake. You got these major events that are taking place that affect mainstream America. So how do you protect your family?”
A rubber mallet is a great tool to have to seal food grade buckets. Place the lid in its place on the filled bucket, and whack the lid into place around the perimeter of the lid. Once you have secured the lid, you can test for a good seal by picking the bucket up by the lid. The weight of the food stored is a pretty good test for whether the lid is securely attached.
The whining and crying of the rich cowboy whose ears were damaged due to the lack of firearms training and precautions with proper hearing cover--absurd. This was the episode which ended it for me. No thanks. The person teaching self defense? Erm... in theory, great. But who honestly believes an out-of shape person is going to be able to defend against a well-trained, fit and armed attacker? Or two? Some of these people need to get their reality checked.
After a few days in New Zealand, I could see why one might choose to avoid either question. Under a cerulean blue sky one morning in Auckland, I boarded a helicopter beside a thirty-eight-year-old American named Jim Rohrstaff. After college, in Michigan, Rohrstaff worked as a golf pro, and then in the marketing of luxury golf clubs and property. Upbeat and confident, with shining blue eyes, he moved to New Zealand two and a half years ago, with his wife and two children, to sell property to H.N.W.I. who want to get “far away from all the issues of the world,” he said.
...what do I need to bring? How much can you realistically take with you when leaving by car, by bike, or on foot? What are the most important items, and will you be able to grab them quickly enough? To simplify things, would it make sense to maintain a small cache of supplies in the trunk of your car or at a friend's place - and if yes, what should be in that box?

Preppers don't buy that. Jay Blevins, a former deputy sheriff and SWAT officer in Berryville, Va., says social unrest from a financial meltdown could be devastating. He has formed a prepper network of family and friends, people with varying skills such as knifemaking. They'd help one another in such a calamity. He says his Christian faith drives him to help others prepare, and although he is not certain the end is near, he thinks getting prepared is an act of personal responsibility.

Plastic Bottles: With a little bit of cellophane, you can turn a two liter bottle into a great way to store rice, beans, sugar, or other pourable items. You will just need to make sure it is clean and thoroughly dry. Wash out the inside with dish soap and hot water. Add a few drops of bleach and then rinse it out and set it out to dry. Check that it is truly PET plastic by checking for the small PET triangle on the bottom of the bottle. When you fill it, put in an oxygen absorber half way up to help improve the shelf life even further. Two liter bottles hold a fair amount of food and are not as heavy as a five gallon bucket, which can make them easier to handle.

17. Spices and Condiments. Adding some spices and condiments to your food storage pantry will allow you to vary the taste of your storage foods, thus mitigating some of the boredom that is likely to occur over time. The exact mix of spices and condiments is up to you but some suggestions include garlic, chili, Tabasco (hot sauce), salsa, oregano, thyme and black pepper. For a full list of the best prepper herbs and spices, check out the BDS guide here.

Is it stereotypical that the AARP crowd would be the ones to spend three hours talking about metal detectors and canning and caving at a Pizza Hut on a Monday night? Probably, but that’s what I bore witness to in this event room; its combination of exposed wood and stock-photo decor felt like an Olive Garden inside a pirate ship. Up front, the scraggly white-bearded, Bad Santa–lookalike Andrew: rested one foot on a chair, gripping the mic, just like Randall said he would be.
The most popular category are semi-automatic rifles, including the scary-looking AR-15 clones, the much less villainous Ruger Mini-14, and a bunch of in-between choices, such as Ares SCR. All three are known for reliability and good accuracy. Semi-automatics typically fire relatively small but high-energy projectiles (e.g., .223 Remington / 5.56x45mm NATO); such projectiles are still suitable for home defense and hunting small to medium game.
While home storage of water is not hugely complicated, things get a bit dicey when you have to evacuate - or if you end up being stranded away from home. If you have a car, your best bet is to put together a small emergency supplies box that, among other essentials, houses one or two 1-gallon jugs of water - and keep it in your trunk at all times. But without a car, your prospects are less cheerful: in case of a widespread disaster, your range will be severely limited, and even if you take some modest amount water with you, you will need to reach a more hospitable location within 1-2 days. A bicycle, a plan, and a good map will help. A folding cart or a an inconspicuous box of supplies kept at work may be viable choices, too.
“How do I tell Dr. Norman Shealy that he was voted out of the meetup?” Finelli asks, rhetorically. “So I told him on-air. I said, ‘Dr. Shealy, they had a vote, and you were voted to be barred from the meeting.’ And he kind of laughed, and I said don’t get all excited, they banned me, too.” He holds no grudges; he says he’s actually glad it happened. Now he knows how his students really felt.
For muggings, keeping several $10 or $20 bills in your front pocket (and having real valuables somewhere else) can be enough to send them on their way; in busy locations, you should also be able to just ignore the mugger and briskly walk away. For more serious incidents, it may be useful to respond with something that is non-threatening but catches the assailant off guard. Simply feigning a panic attack or initiating a startling conversation ("hey, are you a friend of CJ? Pretty sure we've met last year!") can throw them off balance - allowing you to fight back or get away. Of course, you also need a plan for that next step; that's where your running skills, your bare-hands self-defense talents, or your weapons proficiency can come into play. But again, you need to actively practice and develop approaches that have a chance of working in real life; there's no verbal diversion strategy in the world that would give you enough time to fumble through your purse to find an old, gummed up can of pepper spray.
Awesome article. Really useful tool for assessing where I am in the process. And planning the next step. Once again, Gaye, you give us the important information without the fear. Some walk away from the fear and don’t get started. Some, such as me, rush headlong into the fear and then have a panic attack. So the fear is not productive. I appreciate your style.
16. One large jug of Oil. Choose olive oil, coconut oil or some other cooking oil, but definitely get some. Oil is essential for good health, fueling our energy stores and providing support for fat-soluble vitamins and nutrients as they work their way through our system. Not only that, but a bit of fat in your diet adds flavor and makes you feel satisfied when you are done eating.
There are millions of people in the United States alone that consider themselves preppers. Preppers are those who actively prepare for all types of emergencies from natural disasters to civil unrest. They often acquire items such as emergency medical supplies, food and water, and more. While not everyone prepares for disasters as some preppers do, anyone can put together a survival kits that could help them in times of need. For those who are new to prepping, there are many articles and resources available on topics ranging from food to self defense, and more. The resources below will help those interested in prepping get started.
Many preppers are skeptical of couponing, because it still seems to require spending a lot of money. Using a $1.00 coupon on a purchase of $5.00 means you still have to spend $4.00, right? Wrong! This is where many preppers get mixed up. The secret to couponing, what allows some people to be so unbelievably successful with it, is pairing coupons with sales.
When it comes to preparing for emergencies, men appear to be slightly more proactive than women, with an estimated 45.39% of women and 47.55% of men putting up to $5,000 into savings in the past 12 months. On the flip side, women seem to be the more generous gender, with 35.59% donating up to $400, compared with only 29.39% of males who’ve done the same.

Dedicated preppers have been living the prepper life for a long time if not forever. That’s the only plus we may have over the newbies. We come to websites like Gaye’s to keep obtaining knowledge we may have forgotten or didn’t know during our lives. I try to learn something new everyday, and more often than not, I learn from backdoorsurvival and the comments.

DIY home surgeons will be excited to know epinephrine can actually be used with lidocaine (a numbing agent) to restrict blood vessels for faster wound repair. (Note: Cracked in no way condones performing self-surgery.) When sanitization resources become limited, the speed with which a wound can heal will have a drastic impact on survival rates. The longer a wound stays open and bloody, the more likely you are to get infections. Infections have historically been some of the most deadly and difficult-to-treat medical conditions, and even today they are not always easily survivable.
8. Oats – Another staple, that is super cheap & easy 30 year storage option. Oats are perfect for the prepper because they only require boiled water to prepare, then just add some cinnamon or sugar and you have breakfast. It also helps to control blood sugar and cholesterol. Oats can also double as feed for most animals. Here are 10 reasons you should store oats.
I have muscle racks from Sams Club. They are so heavy duty so hold A LOT of weight for totes, #10 cans, buckets. They are adjustable and I want to say each shelf holds up to 1000lbs??? I think the racks are around $160. I have found some great prices on Augason Farms products online at Walmart and Sams Club. For #10 cans the LDS cannery has some of the best prices on pantry staples. Emergency Essentials has other items like baking powder, cornstarch, etc in smaller cans which can be nice to look into.

Ben had some good ideas. Hiking in the back mountains of Cape Town can sometimes be tricky as being off the beaten track it is not often you will see anyone. I suggest flares to light up the night sky to attract overhead planes. Also a really powerful long range torch (flashlight) is a must as it will also light up a huge part of the mountain and this will ensure one’s safety. Condoms! Yes but it is not what you think – condoms come in handy to waterproof bandages or protect and prevent irritating blisters. Also handy to keep items like your cell phone waterproof. Chapstick – great for soothing burns and bites and takes the itchiness away. Spare socks.